“So as the end of my second deployment draws closer and closer, I’ve been pondering a thought, related to the question a lot of Marines are asked, and that question is “Why do we do it?”. I’ve come to the realization that the reason we do what we do changes. For example, ask a young man fresh out of boot camp, or even fresh out of high school about to leave for boot camp, and the typical answers you will get will be along the lines of :”I want to fight for/serve my country.” “My family is part of a military tradition” or “I’m doing it for school benefits.”. These are all excellent and admirable reasons for deciding to pick up a rifle and put your life on the line. Now jump ahead a few years, and this same Marine is now a combat veteran, with 1, 2, even 4 or more tours in Iraq or Afghanistan under his belt. You ask this veteran the same question again, and I will bet anything that I hold dear that his answer will be: “I do it for the men to my left and my right, my brothers.”. All those previous reasons, they simply become a byproduct to being out there with your brothers watching each others back. That’s what we are, brothers who have left blood, sweat, and tears on the battlefield. Your best friend back home for 15 years or more will always be just that, a friend, now that is not a bad thing, everyone needs friends in their lives. However, that man you spent just 7 months with in Afghanistan or Iraq, he is now your brother for life. No one will understand what we do or what we go through except for the people who go through it with us.”

Some information for everybody about myself. I write here (on Pat Dollards website) as SGT SMITH, talk in the chat room during the BTR Jihadikiller hour shows as Smitty. I’ve made a couple appearances on the show calling in. This is to let you know who I am, a little bit of what I’ve done; and why I choose to do what I do.

When I was a Junior in high school, I watched as our country came under attack from cowards. I remember that day as everybody does. My deciding point for joining the military came later that day. My father is a firefighter and that evening, there was a memorial service for all of those emergency responders who had lost their lives earlier that day. I sat in a pew next to my mother as I watched the line of firefighters; who I had grown up with being my big brothers, walk down the aisle with their black mourning bands on their badges. I watched as every one of them lost their composure and started to cry. It was at that exact moment that I was young enough to do something, and that I needed to. October of 2002 I found myself at MEPS in Kansas City volunteering for the Marine Corps.

“You forget who you are—black or white and American or African—and where you come from when you are before God circling the Kabba (the large masonry cubic structure near Mecca) in a two-piece unstitched garment.” These words are from sitting United States Congressman Keith Ellison. This fellow who has a time when he ‘forgets’ he is an American is America’s ‘unofficial goodwill Ambassador’ to the Middle East. Americans held hostage by terrorists, in POW camps and under enemy fire can never forget they are an American fighting man or civilian. But from journalists to politicians of the Left we have people with American citizenship who claim to either be against what we fight for to protect innocent citizens of our country or claim to be ‘neutral.’ Only during the Vietnam War did America begin to tolerate neutrality in time of war. Thank you Uncle Walter Cronkite for that insight. But now it has become an almost accepted ‘truth’ of our country today. It is hogwash and strikes at the very moral fiber of our nation.

Politicians leak intelligence given in closed classified briefings and give it their own spin to undermine our elected leaders and our warriors in harm’s way. But even worse we have a generation of officers in the military and bluenose operatives in government who leak seemingly at will. This they take as their ‘democratic’ right. One has to question if some of these folks took their oath of office with their fingers childishly crossed behind their collective backs. The John Kerry/Daniel Ellsberg type of military officer/government employee are sadly alive and well and are once again multiplying as the leftist press of the media in all forms continues to multiply like a great cancerous growth on the body politic. As long as we excuse treason as just another political slant our enemies will plan to prolong any engagement until we quit like a poodle in a fight with a German Shepherd. Lots of whining and yelping but not much biting by the pussy pups of this genre. We are the Dobermans of war and fear of even a rabid Poodle is heresy in keeping with our sacrificing forebears.

EXIT Strategy’ equals quitting my fellow citizens.

I am not today nor will I ever be a ‘citizen of the world’ because I am an American, first, last and always.

I do not go back to nations I have fought to apologize to them but simply to smirk in their wretched little faces over how many of their sorry, mentally captured brethren I slew in battle.

I am an Infantry Soldier and my very pride is built on the broken bodies of my enemies.

I am not a purveyor of political ideals but simply a life taker and will breaker because bringing political change is somebody else’s job and not mine.

I am proud of old soldiers when they gather to reminisce. You do not hear a lot of whining as they mingle, even from those who left parts of themselves broken on a foreign shore. They do talk of what might have been if some politically motivated clown act had not snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. But they do so in eternal anger and not in whining discussion groups led by those who were never there. But I do hear a recurring theme which says with great sadness ‘Who are we and what have we become’?

It is rather simple really. We have become a ‘pussified ‘group of self-thinking, propagandized whiners who believe that nothing is worth the long-haul to pursue. ‘Exit Strategy’ has become the catch-word for a nation no longer yearning for or even seeing the importance of the simple but irreplaceable word VICTORY. So when you mouth the phrase ‘Peace on earth, goodwill towards men’ this Christmas, may we remember the price paid on a cruel cross to try and achieve it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND GOD BLESS AMERICA AND HER BRAVE.

Black Lions Sir,
De Oppresso Libre,
Rangers Lead The Way
and
Currahee!

Marine Corporal Garrett Jones is back in combat, and he’s mad as…well, you get the picture.

While on patrol with his unit, the 2/7 Marine Regiment in Iraq a little over a year ago, Cpl Jones remembers a flash and a cloud of smoke. He was thrown through the air into a sewage canal. After that, things got fuzzy. When he awoke, a chaplain informed him he’d lost his leg above the knee. Jones recalls saying, “I hear they make really good prosthetics.”

Seventeen surgeries and a whole lot of physical therapy now behind him, the tough young corporal is back in battle with his buddies – this time in Afghanistan. He’s one of a growing number of amputees who refuse to allow the loss of a limb to stop them from serving. And Jones recuperated in record time – a little under nine months after his injury, he was training to return to his unit. To do so, he had to prove himself all over again, going through all the same pre-deployment training as the others.

This is, after all, the Marine Corps. They don’t play wait-up.

“My leg popped off a couple of times in the humvee scenario and once when I was leaving a range,” Jones said. “I thought it was funny because ‘How many guys walk around with combat loads and have a leg fall off?’ I still did it to prove that I could deploy as an amputee.”

It’s that kind of spirit that enables him to endure the brutal operational tempo and primitive living conditions that his unit must endure in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan. And being the first above-the-knee amputee to return to combat with his unit makes him a literal walking legend with his peers.

Jones recently submitted his paperwork to reenlist for another stint with the unit he loves. He also plans to represent the Marine corps this winter in another amazing display of toughness – a national snowboarding competition.

“I love being with the guys, the same people. I really do,” Jones said. “If it wasn’t for the guys in this unit, I wouldn’t be here. It’s an honor to serve with them and be in a place where many Marines don’t get a chance to go.”

I will start this out being very blunt. Fuck doubters, haters, naysayers, MSM, Liberal fucktards, Berkley faggots, and anybody else who talks shit on the efforts of what we were doing, what we are doing, or what we will do.

There is a small town that in within my AO that I get the pleasure to go to everyonce in a while. This town is very small, surrounded by palm groves. These people are far away from any major city. It is the most professional IP station I have ever visited. They have their IP station with all their trucks staged nice and neat and clean, clearly marked. They have their command building sectioned off into different responsiblities, IE: Admin, Intel, Ops, Supply. This city has been built up by the hard work of its’ people and it’s Police force. The IP Chief isn’t like any other Iraqi that I’ve ever encountered. We told him that he needs to try to roll up any bad guys who drive by his town and asked him what he needs in return for his good deeds. Other IP stations would have asked for anything and everything. He said he didn’t need anything, just knowing that he was taking bad people away from his city and out of his country was all he needed. The city has city-wide get togethers where they go and pick up all the trash from the city to make it look nice, not like other cities where as long as it isn’t in your house it’s not your problem. The IP’s have the highest level of motivation and professionalism I have ever witnessed. Their city is at such a high level of security that they are putting together a business proposal to set up a hotel and restaurant near a natural spring where Jesus is said to have once swam. As well as a different business proposal to set up a hunting lodge where people can go hunting for exotic birds, wild boar and go fishing in near by fresh water springs. But……. you’ll never probably read anything like this anywhere else, because, the death rates are up in Afghanistan, and the US is doing strikes in Pakistan, and Obama is the first elected black president in US history. I haven’t fired a round since september of last year on my last deployment, over 4 months!! We haven’t even done so much as an escalation of force in my platoon. But… that doesn’t give anybody the NVG firefight video’s or the contraversy of an innocent civilian being wounded or an insurgent that’s been wounded being shot again to finish him off. Is there still shit going on over here? Absolutely. When I can pick up a Marine Times from the PX and only read the names of 2 KIA for 2 weeks, that’s when I think the media should be at an all time high, out here interviewing the troops, interviewing the people to see how they feel. Not still doing reports from the “green zone”. They need to stop being pussies and see what’s going on now, granted, they won’t have to worry about taking cover or having snipers singling them out because of their press flaks and kevlars. But this is when we need to show the world what’s going on over here.

This is a update from Sgt Smith who’s deployed to Iraq. He posted this in comments at Pat Dollards website.

Hey hey, it’s me, been gone for a bit, been busy, as usual, but loving every minute of it. A few things to talk about this evening (2330 Iraqistan time). Where to start… Development of the Iraqi Army. Every morning, after breakfast, as I’m drinking a cup of the slop they call coffee out here, I look over to the IA side of the base, and for the last month I see the IA out doing various things. They might be a little ragged around the edges but they are military in nature. I see them doing close order drill, or their own variation of it. Working on crossing danger area’s and other urban movements. Even PTing on their own, as a unit. It’s pretty amazing.

Next things next. Throughout our meetings with IP Chief’s, Sheikhs, and other city/GOI leaders, I have found myself becoming more animated and emotional about what is going on with them and their city. For a week or two it puzzled me as to why I was getting so attached to it, and then one night while I was “chillin” in my room listening to some Jack Johnson, and it hit me. I’m on my fourth deployment to this country, and it’s growing on me. I knew that it would and that it has, but it never made sense until the other night. Now, I’m not a father but I imagine this to be a somewhat similar situation. I’ve been working on this little project called OIF for over 2 years now and I’ve put alot of heart and emotion into what has happened here. I’ve been through ups and downs out here. My first two deployments were heavily ridden in combat, but even with that we still focused on the people. My last deployment I treated 14 Iraqi trauma’s from insurgent activity. Now I’m out here as a political advisor. I’ve just put so much into this country that I never want to see it fail, if it does then I fail. I fail those who have gone before me and beside me. That is not an option, but it’s so hard to see things happening, and only being able to “advise” it’s like when our ROE’s started getting tightened, but instead of killing bad guys it’s holding us back from helping the good. I want to be able to help these guys just to see their country do well. It’s with a bit of selfishness though I think. I can look at something I’ve made, and saying, wow that’s amazing, and it means more because I’ve made it. I know that these people need to look at their things and feel the same way. This country just cannot fail. There has been a trend, and to the other branches don’t take offense to this just take it for what it is, facts. Somalia, US Marines sent to quell the uprising, sent away, NATO brought in, fucked it up, Army sent in, and we all know how that went. Afghanistan, Marines sent in hooking and jabbing getting some, Marines sent away, NATO brought in, fucked it up, request that Marines come back to help them fight an even harder more intense fight than what they left. We can’t allow this to happen here, not with the countries around Iraq. All over the place tonite, sorry about that, I need to take a class on organizing your thoughts I think. Alright, Semper Fi, take care, laters!

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Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller fought in the battle of Fallojuah.

Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller, 20, a country boy from Kentucky who has been thrust unwittingly and somewhat unwillingly into the role of poster boy for a war on the other side of the world from his home on the farm. He has had to endure battling with PTSD.

To hear Lance Cpl. James Miller speak about what he deals with by having PTSD and why, here are some videos.

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Quotes

"Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR."
~ Vietnam Pilot

"In combat, honor is obtained by those who do what must be done, not what is allowed by those who refuse to fight or die for their own cause...my extremes pump fear into the enemy for generations come, your extremes cause warriors to bow in the presence of the unworthy, presenting weakness and opportunity ... well, I bow to no man"
~ Antonio Cezar Vega